The recycling of U.S. manufacturing

Forget about using green tech for a minute, and consider the
ultimate in sustainability for U.S. manufacturing: reinventing
itself around green tech. Think of it as the recycling of U.S
manufacturing.

The most obvious new market is green energy technologies such as
fuel cells, batteries, and wind and solar energy equipment. The
gigantic federal stimulus bill carries incentives for these
industries, and is expected to jump start
growth in these sectors.

But manufacturing growth around green tech is already happening. As
part of research on a software news story for Manufacturing
Business Technology, I came across a company called Mariah Power that makes small
wind-power turbines or “appliances.” The Reno,
Nevada-based company needed to launch a manufacturing operation to
make its equipment, but rather than build a new factory out West,
it looked for partners, and chose MasTech Manufacturing in
Manistee, Mich.

Located in Western Michigan, the company is near the heart of the
depressed automotive industry. But the company isn’t
suffering like traditional auto parts suppliers, says John Holcomb,
general manager. For one thing, much of its work comes from
designing and making material handling systems and tooling for
factories. With the automotive industry retooling to make a new
breed of vehicles, its automotive-related business has held up.

The other big factor working in MasTech’s favor, says
Holcomb, is that their core talent has always centered around
engineering and building diverse systems for others, rather than
cranking out the same parts for the same supply chains. To
successfully reinvent around new growth industries, says Holcomb,
automotive suppliers are going to have rethink how their skills and
resources can be applied to new products and new supply chains.

So if an automotive supplier makes a part—let’s say
ring gears—it shouldn’t pin its hopes on fitting those
same gears into alternative energy products, but rather, it should
consider how the company’s existing manufacturing skills,
machine resources, and engineering knowledge can fit into that new
industry. Retooling or redesign of lines might be needed. Operators
might have to learn some new skills. Most importantly, management
has to identify the best opportunities. “It’s going to
take some engineering expertise at a system level,” says
Holcomb. “And, there needs to be a willingness on the part of
management to step into the unknown.”

In short, the recycling of U.S manufacturing is not only going to
take the right government incentives, as well as innovation from
green tech product OEMs, but also innovation and flexibility from
suppliers looking to break into these growth sectors. Or sadly, if
companies fail, innovation from start-ups who draw resources from
the old industries.

There is hope for this reinvention model. Mick Hansen, the VP of
engineering at Mariah Power, tells me that Mariah’s
philosophy is to focus on product innovation, not on areas like
manufacturing expertise or running its own ERP system (it chose on
on-demand ERP solution). I’m sure there are plenty of other
green tech OEMs who will take a similar approach, and will need
assembly partners, or perhaps quality management and manufacturing
expertise that can be reapplied around field assembly and final
test operations.

The bottom-line is that the people, the expertise, and the
facilities for green tech growth can be found within older
industries. As Holcomb says of Michigan, “We have the
technology to become a leader in these industries. And we have the
best and most knowledgeable workers, with the best work ethic that
can found anywhere.”